


Haven in a Heartless World

by phirephox666



Series: Moments of Hotch [3]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Families of Choice, Fluffy Feelings, Gen, Hotch is sorta adorable, Light Angst, Original Character who will feature later on, Pre-Canon, Russian Nicknames, families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 07:43:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phirephox666/pseuds/phirephox666
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Family isn't always blood and home isn't always the house you live in. Family is the people who care about you and home is the place you feel safe in.</p><p>Hotch's home has never been the house he lived in, it's always been people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haven in a Heartless World

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, apologies for the OC. He'll show up later too, so sorry, but I need another person from Hotch's past who isn't Haley. He shall be explained at a later date. He's the first hint at actual plot that seems to have snuck in to my collections of moments. The first bit of this is way before the show, the second bit is after Haley dies and before the first chapter. 
> 
> Warnings: Nothing too bad here, but there are vague implications of child abuse, neglect, and death. Very, very vague implications, but they are still there.

_"The family is a haven in a heartless world."_

His first year in college Aaron takes a class called Media and Culture, solely based on the fact that his best friend is taking and it sounds mildly interesting. It is nothing like Aaron expected, of course, although he's not really sure what he expected. Somehow it just isn't what he got. Sergi loves it of course.

"Media," Says Professor Anderson at precisely 9:05 that first Tuesday morning, dressed in a striped sweater vest, "and Culture. The relationship between the two is one of the most influential to the populace in our time. Media affects us, changes the way we perceive things. Newspapers, television, magazines, radio, internet. Every one of those effects the way we think, the way we feel, the way we look at things around us. And _you_ are here to learn how and why."

Sergi was fascinated by the course and even Aaron had to admit to being interested when Sergi questions him on it later. The next lecture is a little different.

"Culture," Professor Anderson states just as promptly on Friday, "Ours is different from anyone else's. We are not alone in this. Every country out there has a different culture, different social standards. Take personal space. American standards for personal space are different from French standards for personal space. American's are very fond of their personal space. Also, think greeting people. The difference between greeting someone you have just met or someone you've know your entire life. All these are part of our culture."

The professor spins towards his chalk board. His sweater vest is brown. He writes 'FAMILY' in big, block letters on his chalk board, underlines it twice and spins again, this time facing his class.

"Family." He tells them, "Home. The definition for either is different for everyone. What makes a family?"

Someone raises their hand and he calls on them. "Mom, dad, kids."

"Yes, yes. The easiest answer, the _standard_ answer." Professor Anderson says, gesticulating a bit. Another person raises their hand.

"Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings."

"Again, standard answer. Think, _what_ makes a whole family?" His gestures are wider, encompassing none of them seem to be grasping. The idea niggles in the back of Aaron's brain and on a bit of a whim he raises his own hand and when called on he offers his own opinion.

"Friends, the people who... care about you." He hesitates to say the word love, even as he glances out of the corner of his eye at Sergi. Sergi smiles back at him, affection clear in his gaze.

"Bingo! Family is not only blood, kiddies! Friends, people who care about you. Blood-relations, sure, but there are people out there who's entire family is made of those who aren't blood relations. So, one page essay on what your family and your home is to _you_. Due Tuesday. Get out."

They get out. Sergi is smiling happily at Aaron all the way.

"Ha! See, Aleksei, you should answer more often. You are _insightful!_ " Sergi says to Aaron, addressing his friend in Russian. Aaron responds in the same language.

"I respond when I feel the need to, Sergi."

"Aleksei is _shy_." Sergi teases. Aaron just stares at him blank-faced and Sergi sighs. "You were funner to tease when you blushed all the time." The Russian boy mourned.

"I am sure you'll live, Sergi." Aaron says with a hint of a smile to the tilt of his lips. Sergi laughs happily bouncing onward like an overgrown puppy.

_My Family is a difficult thing to quantify. They say blood is thicker than water, but I've found that it really does not work that way. I suppose the easiest place to start is with my family by blood. I am a born and bred southern gentleman trained up by my mother on how to act in 'polite society.' There are far worse mothers out there. There are also far better. There are times when I do not think that my mother has ever actually looked beyond what she expects of me to look at the 'me' behind the expectations. I find I care little for what she expects of me now._

_My relationship with my brother, Sean, is harder to define. I love him dearly, for he is my brother and dear to me for that. Yet, in some ways I resent him because he is my parents' favorite, and he has never seemed to grasp the full power of that position. He has no knowledge of some of the skeletons in my family's closet. I envy Sean that ignorance, and at the same time pity him for it. Our relationship has been strained since I left for college. He does not understand why I did not go where my parents wanted me to, why I left and moved far away from them. He thinks me selfish, and perhaps I am._

_The less said about my father, the better. He is no family of mine, not by more than blood relation links us._

_My true family, the ones who care for me and support me, is made of two very special individuals. The first is my friend/sometimes-girlfriend, Haley Brooks. She has been my friend throughout high school and supported me quite a bit. I know that one day we are going to get married, but I am content to wait for a while, as she wishes to. She is very kind and compassionate and often times I think she'd make a good psychiatrist or something. She'd kill me if I told her that._

_The second of these individuals is Sergi Bolshevik. Sergi is my best friend and has been since I met him in middle school. Sergi calls me Aleksei which means 'protector of man' because he says I have the strongest protective streak he's ever seen. He's stuck by me through thick and thin. Sergi gets me in a way no one else does and he is so loyal it's almost frightening. He taught me Russian when I asked, and tutored me when I needed it. We're as close as if we were blood related, as brothers should be, closer than me and Sean have been in a long time._

_Home. People say home is where the heart is. If that is the case my home is definitely not the house I grew up in. That house has no heart; it is a presentation of everything that makes a good rich southern family's house. A home is nothing like that place. A home is some place to feel safe, to feel comfortable, and to feel as if you are able, allowed, to be yourself. Back when I still lived with my parents my home would have been Sergi's house. It is the only place I felt safe at. Now my home is the apartment I share with Sergi. Out apartment has heart, it has personality. It is a real home, warm and full of things that the both of us actually enjoy. That is a home, unlike the sterile, fake thing I left behind._

_A family and a home, two things I've found in completely not normal, not standard places. Maybe some people would disagree that these are people, friends who are not blood relations, are family, but they are a damn sight better at being my family than my blood family my "real" family, ever was._

He almost scraps the entire essay, almost throws it in to the trash and turns in something else. It is too open, too raw, to full of truths and feelings he's never truly voiced to anyone, let alone a teacher whose class he'd only been to twice. In the end he turns it in, knowing that nothing else will be completely true in the way this is. Maybe it's too true, but anything else would be too false, so he turns the damn thing in and pretends not to stress over it.

He gets an A+ on the paper and when he finally lets Sergi read it his best friend cries like a child.

He hadn't even known he'd kept a copy of it. The old essay is wrinkled and splotched and sentences have been rendered completely illegible by time and wear. Hotch doesn't have an eidetic memory like Reid, but even after the better part of twenty years some phrases still echo in his ears as he skims the page.

 _I envy Sean that ignorance, and at the same time pity him for it._ It had been true for many years, Sean knew so little of the family secrets, and Hotch had envied that at the same time as he had pitied his brother his lack of knowledge. For although Sean was maybe happier without it he was effectively living a half-truth.

 _The less said about my father, the better._ Still true, he thinks, closing his eyes in silent contemplation. It's been years since he's talked of his father and he's not about to start. Ever.

 _The second of these individuals is Sergi Bolshevik._ The rest of that passage has faded, worn away, but Hotch can remember it like he'd written it yesterday. There is the pain of an old wound there, healed and faded but still sore, always sore. An ache he'd learned to put aside, to ignore, but never forget.

For a long time "home" wherever he was had been Sergi and Haley. The only safeness in a world that had been perpetually dangerous and frightening. Eventually both of them had left him, despite their numerous promises not to, and to think of either of them was heartbreaking. Hotch sighed softly and tucked the old essay back in to its folder, moving on to find what he'd actually been looking for.

He is still thinking of it the next morning as he watches his team trickle in to the bullpen in ones and twos. Something in his chest, the cold, hard thing that had lodged itself next to his heart last night when he had thought about years gone past and the two people who had sworn never to leave him, leaving him so easily, seems to melt away with surprising ease.

First comes Garcia, early as always, and although her workspace is not in the bullpen with everyone else, she'll linger there to greet the others as they come in. Rossi is next, still a little on the early side, but only just. J.J. arrives perfectly on time, then lingers to talk to Garcia and Rossi. Reid and Prentiss come in together, obviously having met up in the parking lot, or in the elevator, and talking together quietly before they spot the others and join them. Last is Morgan who is late, but not enough for it to be worrisome. He grins easily at the congregation of his coworkers and friends, joining them immediately.

Hotch watches and his chest fills with warmth, warmth that spreads through him and out in to his limbs, chasing the old pain and buried memories away.

 _Family,_ he remembers saying, so many years ago, _are the people who care about you. Home is the place you feel safe, the place you feel cared for._

This is his family; _these people_ are his family, his home, his sanctuary. These people, who he wouldn't have ever expected to have twenty years ago. He has his son, Jack, and his team, and even J.J.'s son and husband. They are his family. And maybe some of them have secrets in their pasts. Maybe they're all a little bit broken. The cracked and jagged edges just make it easier to fit them together.

Rossi turns, quietly and subtly seeking him out and finding him lurking by his office. There is happiness in Rossi's eyes and he beckons Hotch forward, real affection on his face. For a moment Hotch stands, apart but still basking in the glow of his family's warmth. Then he steps forward and they draw him in, surrounding him on all sides with warmth and safety.

This is his family now and he couldn't, not even if he'd tried to, have imagined a better one.

_"It is not flesh and blood but the heart that makes us fathers and sons. It is not flesh and blood but the heart that makes us family."_

**_Finis._ **


End file.
